


A Drink With Death

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Afterlife, Gen, Spiritual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 11:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10661355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Written for a tumblr prompt.After breaking up a fight between Thor and Loki, Kara picks up Mjolnir and inadvertently summons Hela.  Kara has to reevaluate her relationship with death.





	A Drink With Death

She descended through the clouds, looking down at the white veins of the city spread below her. Ah, Midgard. There was nothing quite like it. The scent of sea salt, and jet fuel, and human toil. Lovely.

But why was she here? She couldn’t quite tell what had summoned her. There certainly did seem to be a great deal of destruction in this one part of the city, but she could not find any souls that were waiting to be reaped. She felt pain; many injured lay among the rubble, and she could hear some of their anguished crying. But no dead. At least not yet.

Now that she was closer, though, she could feel the tug in her gut, the pull of something she knew well, and she followed it through the warm midmorning air. It was the girl.

She saw the girl from a distance, standing on the rooftop of one of these Midgardian sky-rise buildings, clad in blue with a cloak of red wrapped about her shoulders. Not typical attire for this neighborhood, she thought with amusement. She was blond, tall, built flawless, as if in the workshops of Asgard. Her white-gold hair whipped about her face in idle strands as she surveyed the rubble below.

And in her hand, for reasons that were yet to be determined, was Mjolnir.

Hela gasped only a little. She had not seen Thor’s mighty hammer in many a long year, but she hadn’t expected to find it in the hand of this Midgardian girl.

She touched down beside her. The girl turned and looked at her.

“You’re one of them?” she asked, observing Hela’s clothing.

Hela nodded slowly. She was holding Mjolnir, which meant she had encountered other Asgardians, probably Thor. “After a fashion,” she confirmed, “I suppose.” She glanced around. “What happened here?”

The girl gave her a tight smile. “These two guys were fighting, a big blond guy and a smaller guy who had on a helmet that was like–” And she raised her free hand and held two fingers in front of her head to indicate horns. Loki, Hela thought. And the blond must indeed be Thor. “Are they friends of yours?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Hela answered with amusement. She peered down at the damage. “But I know their father quite well.” She tutted for a moment. Those two. Thousands of years old and they still couldn’t manage stop fighting like infants. “How did you subdue them?”

The girl shrugged. She held up her two fists, one of which still clutched Mjolnir. “Xena,” she said, indicating her left fist, “and Gabrielle,” she finished, indicating her right, which held the hammer “The boys are knocked out and napping on a hill outside the city. I don’t imagine they’ll stay that way for long. Any chance you can take them back with you to wherever it is you guy came from? I’d really appreciate it.”

Hela chuckled. “You’re not a human, are you?”

The girl shook her head. “No.” She looked at Hela, and her eyes were the most magnificent dark blue, like the night skies of Earth. “What gave it away?”

Hela gestured at the girl’s ensemble. “Well, the outfit. And the fact that you’re holding Thor’s hammer.”

The girl turned it over in her hand. “Oh, this thing? Yeah, it’s handy. With the lightning and stuff... But I guess it is a little heavy for most humans.”

“It’s not just the weight. It’s the worthiness of its bearer.” The girl was impressive, Hela thought. She wondered if she’d ever get the chance to reap this one. She’d enjoy some time helping her transition to the afterlife. “Mjolnir does not allow itself to be lifted by just anyone, you know.”

The girl smiled. “Worthy, huh?” She spun it easily in her hand a few times. “Wow. Well, listen, I don’t want to be a jerk, is it yours or something? Do I need to give it back? I haven’t had good luck with hanging onto artifacts of alien cultures that aren’t my own.”

Hela gazed at her. She sensed the darkness in the one, sadness, beneath this light demeanor. “What is your name?”

“I am Kara Zor-El, of Krypton.” She spoke it with pride.

She almost felt a physical pain as the girl said this. Krypton. What a task that had been. So many souls to be taken through the breach that day. Even for one of her might, it had taxed her greatly. She always hated having to be present at the destruction of a great world. Civilizations came and went, of course, and those Kryptonians had a deity awaiting them on the other side. But to bring so many over at once… it left her exhausted and sick for days, barely able to complete her other reapings, but time and the cosmos marched on, and death waited for no-one, not even her.

She had worked with Rao for many centuries. She knew him. She had almost loved him, she thought. She had thought she might never see him again after that day. She had thought there were no Kryptonians left.

Kara Zor-El seemed to observe her reaction, and inquired with concern, “Are you alright? You look a little… green?”

Hela mustered a pained smile. “I had thought I would not encounter another of your race.”

The girl’s entire aspect changed as she spoke, seeming to mirror Hela’s own. “You… you knew my people?”

Hela nodded. “Indeed. I was with them until the last.”

She saw Kara’s hand clench around Mjolnir’s handle. “What do you mean?” she asked, her voice suddenly quiet and fierce.

Hela sighed, smiling sadly at her. Mjolnir was no threat of course; she could disintegrate it with a single touch if she wished. But she could feel that it was not this girl’s time, and she had no interest in a fight. “I ushered them to the other side.”

Kara threw her shoulders back, her entire body language gearing up for another confrontation. “What. Do. You. Mean?”

Was it possible? “Do you not know who I am?”

Kara’s eyes narrowed. “No.” She stepped a little closer.

Hela spread her arms apart, and in so doing, warped the very air around her until it shimmered like a watery mirror, one that showed Kara precisely the shape of who she expected to see. “I am Death,” she replied with a calm smile.

She knew what Kara was seeing, if she truly was a Kryptonian. Hela had never cared for the Kryptonian conceptualization of her; it had too many arms, too many horns, too many eyes, and conveyed none of her grace and benevolence. Just power. Inevitable, relentless power. That was her, also, of course, but she wished some civilizations better understood that there was more to her than that.

“You took my world,” Kara was breathing as she stood, staring, for she clearly knew that it was true. “You took my family!”

Hela lowered her hands and placed them at her hips. “Yes. And all of your kin, I expect, Kara Zor-El. That is what I do.”

“It’s your fault I’m alone in the universe!” the girl cried, and she lifted Mjolnir, and swung it with effortless accuracy toward Hela’s head.

Hela closed her eyes and when she opened them, she was standing behind the girl, whose red cape fluttered magnificently in the wind. “Kara,” she entreated a bit wearily, “this is pointless.”

But Kara was suddenly overcome with grief and rage, and would not listen to reason. She raised Mjolnir, and summoned the lighting, and sent it, in crackling white torrents, at Hela’s chest.

“YOU TOOK MY FAMILY!”

“Yes.”

Hela caught the lightning in her hands and tossed it harmlessly back up toward the sky.

“WHY?”

“That is my role in the universe.”

Kara threw down the hammer then, and lunged at Hela with all her considerable strength and speed. Hela thought with amusement that it was no wonder she had been able to subdue Thor and Loki. They probably weren’t expecting her to be this formidable.

Hela took off into the sky, and Kara pursued her. “YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!” the girl was shouting.

“No, I’m not!” Hela shouted over her shoulder.

Kara pursued her with greater purpose.

She found herself barrelling forward into one of these sky-rise buildings so she adjusted the nature of her matter in order to pass unharmed through it. Sadly, she found, Kara simply barrelled straight through it. Large chunks of masonry broke off and hurtled toward the street.

Kara swooped down and retrieved one that had been headed toward a television news van, and hurled it straight at Hela.

Hela dodged, and stopped, turning in midair to face her. “Kara Zor-El. You are going to end up killing someone. Unless you wish to give me a soul to take today, STOP.”

Kara paused for a moment, watching the large block of ragged stone hurtle away into the atmosphere. Then she dove straight at Hela and took her by the shoulders. Hela sighed with exasperation. The girl was dogged, it could not be denied. She admired her persistence, and understood her grief, even. She struck her gently, and sent her sailing through the sky, ass over tit, through the side of another hulk of a building that appeared to have already been damaged quite thoroughly by Thor and Loki’s fighting.

She followed, looking among the rubble for her. She would be fine, no doubt, but perhaps the blow would have knocked some sense into her.

A pile of broken stone and drywall moved in the periphery of her vision, and then Kara burst out of it, covered in white dust, looking a little worse for wear but ready to charge at her again. Hela was getting tired of this. She put a hand up and suspended the young mortal in midair.

“You can no more be angry with me for helping your people to pass into Rao’s light than you can be angry with a meteor for striking a planet,” she scolded. “Things in the universe do what they were designed to do. It was not I that killed your world. The elders who refused to change their ways were the ones that killed it.”

The girl continued to struggle, so Hela stood there and let her absorb those words for a moment before continuing on.

“And, for what it might be worth, you should be grateful to Rao, not angry with him. He didn’t destroy your world either.”

Kara stopped struggling, but still seemed petulant. “But he let them all die. He let you take them.”

Hela gave her a sympathetic look. “If I put you down, will you promise to stop trying to kill me? You won’t be able to, and I need to explain something rather important to you.”

After a moment of considering her, Kara nodded, and Hela let her down. She walked over to where she stood, and took a seat on the pile of broken brick and concrete. She patted a spot beside her. Warily, Kara walked over and sat.

Hela waved her hand and materialized two large cups of mead for them. Kara tasted hers, made a little face, then seemed to decide it would do, and drank.

“Kryptonians killed Krypton. Rao could not stop them. The many freedom fighters that I took from there before its destruction could not stop them. But you, Kara, are alive. And I suspect that you are not alone.”

“I’m not,” she acknowledged. “I have my cousin. My… my aunt survived too, but… then my sister had to kill her and–”

“Astra,” Hela recalled. “She died bravely and well. She was loath to leave you, and to leave the Earth. She had still so much to do, she told me.”

Kara’s eyes welled up at the mention of her aunt’s name. “Is she … happy now?”

Hela nodded, giving her a gentle smile. “She is in Rao’s light. As are all the kin and friends that you lost in Krypton’s fire.” She drank from her cup, and reached over to wipe a tear that was rolling down Kara’s cheek. “Rao saved a few of you. It was all he could do, to let you reach another world and let the memory of your people and civilization get passed on, to be remembered in Midgard.”

Kara began to weep openly. “But why did you have to take them?” she sobbed.

“Because, child. Krypton was dying. I could not simply leave their souls in the void. What a crime it would be! When I could bring them into Rao’s light and let them rejoice in his mercy and benevolence?”

Kara wiped her eyes. She had not thought about that, clearly. She had not fully considered how any of this truly worked.

“My job is necessary, Kara Zor-El. I do not ordain who lives and who dies, I only take them when their time comes, and bring them to where they need to be. It’s a thankless job, if I’m being honest, being hated and misunderstood by so many when you only want to help.”

Kara nodded slowly, seeming to understand that. “I get that too, sometimes.” She gazed off into the distance for a bit, then looked up. “Have you seen Rao’s face?”

Helan nodded. “Yes. I knew him well for many thousands of years. And the home that he has made for your people in his light will, I think, please you greatly.”

“Is it beautiful there?”

Hela nodded. “Yes. It is beautiful, peaceful, joyous, abundant. There is no pain, only happiness. Your family waits there for you, abiding in pure and endless love for one another. Not only those who you loved and lost, but your ancestors whom you never knew, and all your people’s history.”

Kara drank some more mead. “You’re not here to take me now, are you?”

Hela laughed gently, “No, no. I believe it will be some time before I come for you, my dear. It was Mjolnir that called me here.”

“Who?”

“Thor’s hammer. I believe it assumed Thor to be dead because it was being wielded by another.”

“Me.”

“Yes.”

“Well,” Kara replied, “like I said, he’s not dead. He and the other guy are sleeping on that hill.” She pointed through the gaping hole in the wall to the distant hills outside the city. “I know you can’t take them to … you know … wherever it is you take dead people from where they come from, since they’re not dead, but… can you maybe drop them back at their dad’s house or something? I’d really rather not deal with them anymore.”

Hela nodded sympathetically. “I understand. Of course.” She stood. “I shall retrieve the hammer as well, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. Knock yourself out.”

Hela started to walk toward the opening in the wall, when Kara added, “Oh, one more thing?”

She turned back. “Yes?”

“When it is my time, and you do show up to come get me and bring me over…?”

“Hm?”

“Can you show up looking like this instead of the way my people used to draw you? Or the way the humans like to draw you? I don’t care for either of those representations. I’d be much happier about crossing over if I was following you.”

Hela laughed. “I look forward to it, Kara Zor-El.” And she walked to the ledge, and stepped off into thin air.


End file.
